After a meeting with Chinese government and industry leaders on Thursday, Gazprom said the “successful conclusion” of negotiations over the western route to China were in sight.

Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee met with Zhang Gaoli, First Vice Premier of China’s State Council and Wang Yilin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

According to Gazprom, the meeting addressed Issues of bilateral cooperation, particularly the preparations for the contract on Russian natural gas supply to China via the western route.

“The parties highlighted that they aimed for the successful conclusion of negotiations which were progressing steadily,” Gazprom said in a statement.

Underground gas storage, power generation, machine-building projects for the oil & gas industry and cooperation in third countries were also considered as areas of cooperation.

Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a Purchase and Sale Agreement to work on a pipeline to supply gas from Russia to China in May 2015.